15 places to hide your Christmas presents

Do you struggle every year to find hiding places for your kids presents? Did they discover your magic spot last year and now you have to think of a new one? Here’s 15 tried and true hiding places to keep the Chrissie gifts a secret until Christmas day.

Try these sneaky spots.

1. Plain sight

A box in the corner of your kitchen or living room is unlikely to be interesting to your kids. Chuck some crumpled up newspaper on top of it and pretend it’s recycling – unless you have particularly helpful kids that like to take out the rubbish, this is a great place for hiding Christmas gifts.

2. Empty suitcases

Hiding presents in an existing empty space is a genius idea – you just pop the presents inside and put it back in its spot.

3. Underneath the bottom drawer

If you have a chest of drawers there’s probably a space underneath the bottom drawer where you can store smaller gifts. Just slide the drawer all the way out, pop your present on the floor where the shelf was and gently slide the drawer back in.

4. Mislabeled boxes in the garage

Kids don’t give a toss about most of the stuff in the garage so just pop their presents in a box labelled ‘tax returns’ or ‘paint swatches’ and the kids won’t even be interested. This is also a great place to hide presents for your significant other if they tend to avoid cleaning the garage.

5. With the cleaning supplies

Pop the presents in a garbage bag or a shoebox and store them with the cleaning supplies. This is particularly effective for teenagers as most of them won’t even know where you keep the cleaning supplies.

6. In the ironing basket

Store the presents at the bottom of the basket and cover it up with those dresses and pants that you haven’t ironed in two years. It’s unlikely anyone will iron them between now and Christmas.

The best hiding spots will have your kids scratching their heads.

7. At a friend’s house

You can always do a present swap with a friend. If you have slightly older kids you might even tell them you’ve swapped with someone (don’t say who) and caution them not to snoop because if they find presents they won’t know who they’re for and they might be disappointed come Christmas Day.

8. In the tumble dryer

Just make sure you can predict the tumble dryer activities of the household… accidentally drying a six pack of boutique beer won’t be pretty.

9. Boot of the car

You’ll have to be sneaky with this one and use a gym bag, nappy bag or even a super market freezer bag will deter most kids. This one has the added bonus of the presents being almost constant supervision – if you have small kids they’re almost never near the car without you.

10. Top of your child’s cupboard

This one is the perfect crime especially if your kids are little and can’t reach at the top their cupboards.

Opening presents is always more fun when the gift inside is a surprise.

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11. In the roof

If you have a step ladder you can pop any presents in the roof while the kids are sleeping. This one works particularly well for older kids who might not know that the roof even opens.

12. Your office

If you do all your shopping online or in your lunch breaks and have presents delivered to your office or work place you can could store them there until your last day of work for the year. It’ll drive their searching to distraction!

13. In the box the Christmas tree lives in

Wherever you store your Christmas tree box, just put the presents in there because the box is empty while the tree is up.

14. Lockable filing cabinet

If you have a lockable filing cabinet this is an ideal spot, especially if you keep the key with your car keys. That way your kids won’t be able to go snooping in there while you’re out because the key is with you.

15. Under the Christmas tree

Just don’t put labels on them or give each of your pseudonym so that when they look under the tree they see presents for your boss Susan but not for them. You can swap the names over on Christmas Eve.

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